Blood Ties
by Moiranna
Summary: I just... miss him.


**Author: **Moiranna**  
Beta**: -**  
Title:** Blood ties**  
Theme**: #27 - Blood**  
Rating**: PG**  
Realm:** Devil May Cry**  
Characters**: Dante, Lady, Nero, Sparda, Vergil,  
**Pairing:** implied Vergil/Dante, mentioning of Vergil/OC  
**Genre:** angst, humour, gen, mild au  
**Warnings:** bit of language  
**Word-count:** 1313  
**Summary**: I just… miss him  
**Notes**: This started out as a little snippet, and then it just spun way out of my control

* * *

"You're such a bastard."

Dante partially lifted the magazine he had placed over his face and peered up at an annoyed Lady.

What had he now done?

He blinked a few times, then placed the magazine back over his face.

"If you must know, then no, I am not. My folks were actually married," came the voice from behind the interview of some wannabe rock star.

His magazine was torn from his face and thrown at the office-desk, just next to where Dante leaned his feet. He stared up at her where she towered up in front of him, her jaw tight and her hands on her hips. One of them holding an almost completely crushed piece of paper.

"What?"

She unfolded the paper and held it in front of his face, and he blinked. It was a wanted sign.

Uh-oh.

"One my informants dropped his by my office a few nights ago. _Explain_." Her voice left no room for arguments, and Dante could tell that the temper that she'd been known for some years back was showing.

Dante made a non-committal sound, ignoring her stare.

"Verge's gone, you and I both know that," he said evenly, not noticing that he'd resorted to using his old nickname for his brother.

"Then how come it reads 'contact the Devil May Cry for future information' at the bottom at the paper?"

A pregnant pause permeated the room, and for a few moments Dante refused to meet Lady's eyes. Finally he gave a great sigh, throwing out his arms, his gloved palms face up.

"Hell if I know. Probably some punk playing a trick on me."

She sighed at this, running a hand through her short hair, which Dante absentmindedly noted had been recently cut, and then she plucked off the shades from her face, pocketing them in one of the holster-like pockets on her hip.

"Look, Dante," she begun in a tired tone, shuffling some of the empty pizza cartons off of the desk before sitting down on it. "Is this because of the Fortuna kid?"

Dante's jaw tightened fractionally, and he gave a miniature nod. Lady said nothing, just waited, watching the emotions flicker by on Dante's face.

"Verge hasn't always been a cold-hearted bastard towards humanity," he said softly, refusing to use past tense even now. "Sure, he's picky as hell, and has always been a stuck-up brat," and here Dante couldn't help but chuckling softly to himself. "But there was one girl…"

Dante grew silent, letting his hair shield his eyes. He would never say out loud what he had thought of that girl, how much he had wanted her dead, but for a brief period of time he had seen his brother truly happy. Seen him smile in a way that he had only done when Dante had been around him.

Before delving too deep into memory-lane he cleared his throat and looked up.

"The age fits," he finally said with a shrug. Actually it wasn't dead-on, but it was close enough that since Dante first laid eyes on Nero he had considered it, and he had grown more and more certain of that it was his brother's offspring for each moment he'd seen the little brat.

"But Vergil is dead," she said softly. "This poster…" her voice trailed off.

He glared at her. "I know that. I killed him myself, remember?" He paused, then added in a tone so low that Lady almost didn't catch it, "I just… miss him."

She was silent for some time, watching him stare at his hands as they clenched and unclenched in his lap before she shook her head.

"No, I don't remember that. I was never at Mallet Island."

Blue eyes peered up at her from underneath heavy bangs of silver hair, and Lady could tell by how Dante's posture relaxed just a few fractions, that miniature smirk edging its way back onto his face, that the old Dante was back.

"Guess you weren't. But anyhow, humour an old man. You never know what you could find out."

She cocked her head to the side. "Old? Christ, you're ancient, you geezer. You just need to realize it. Anyhow, I have a book on actual reincarnation that I think you'd be interested in."

Dante laughed. "A book? Lady, are you quite certain of that my extensive vocabulary can acquiesce to such eloquent writing?"

All Dante ever received for his little speech was a raised eyebrow from his friend and sometimes partner. "Apparently," she continued, "the book circulates around a small village called Hiarth in the northern deserts of Pacia. Ring any bells so far?"

Dante looked at her for a few moments. "Pacia and Fortuna are the only two places that the public knows that my old man have visited."

If Lady was surprised of that Dante knew this she didn't show this, just nodded. "A long time ago, yes. This village, Hiarth, has had cases of extensive child-death, about 20-30 kids per year dying in a place where there are maybe five hundred citizens. Finally they got desperate and called on a demon for help. This demon taught them, for an unknown price, how to make sure of that their young ones survived. What was later uncovered was that they brought back parts of a demon, more specifically a half-demon as the human children couldn't handle the demonic power of a full-fledged demon. And they brought back this half-demon in the guise of humans, using these ill children as the hosts for the half-demon's soul. I checked this up, and every single child that was infused before they realized something was wrong, and we're talking eighteen children, can be traced back to around the date roughly circulating when your brother died."

Dante was silent. Deadly silent. Lady could almost see the cogs turning in his head as that brain that so many thought were nonexistent went through all the plausible solutions for what this meant. Just because he didn't often show that he knew a whole lot didn't mean that he was illiterate. He just preferred the easy life for the most of the time.

After a sufficient amount of time Lady threw out her trump card almost nonchalantly. "According to this book all of them craved power, went through almost all means to achieve more of it, killing the others to attain what they had inherited."

Dante rose fast enough for Lady to blink and jerk back in surprise. He walked over to the Sparda sword, ran his gloved fingers over the blood-red gem set into the sword. Stillness reigned in the room for a few minutes, Lady content in letting Dante draw his own conclusions. She had learned that the demon hunter had a wickedly clever mind when he bothered to use it.

"How many of them are alive today?" he quietly asked, his back to her.

"One." When she said nothing more Dante looked over his shoulder at her, waiting for more information.

"Funny thing is, I did a bit of background research on your Fortuna kid," she said, smirking at Dante as he glared at her phrasing. "Turns out that he's not at all from the Fortuna region, but from a little place called…"

"Hiarth," Dante filled in as Lady's voice trailed off.

"There you have it. Vergil reincarnated. Not by blood, but by spirit."

Dante drifted off into a thoughtful silence, and Lady rose, picking up the wanted sign and pocketing it. Dusting herself off she walked towards the door, but then, just by the door, paused and turned around to look at Dante where he sprawled over his chair.

"I'll be adding this to your debt, demon-boy. Thanks for the reward," she said and patted the pocket with the recently stuffed-in paper. And then she slipped out, grinning at Dante's surprised cursing.

Lady – 1 Dante - 0


End file.
